Afghanistan
Afghanistan is located in Southern Asia, north and west of Pakistan, and east of Iran. It’s majorreligions are Sunni Muslim 84%, Shi'a Muslim 15%, and other 1%. Afghanistan is a weird place andalthough the Taliban rules most of it there is no functioning central government, it is administered byfactions. They don’t have a constitution or a legal system there either. But that is small compared to itsother problems.
    Afghanistan has always been a very poor country; in fact the third-poorest country in the world.Needless to say the 20 years of war Afghanistan has faced didn’t help that problem. They are so poor that Afghanistan’s per capita income is one of the lowest in the world. Its infant mortality rate, 200 deaths per 1,000 infants, is among the world’s highest. It also has the lowest literacy rate and life expectancy, and one of the lowest levels of per capita food availability in the world.
     In May 2001, the World Food Program warned that more than 1 million Afghans were facing famineconditions. Then in September it reported that people were surviving by eating grass and locusts. Aid used to be stronger in Afghanistan but after the September 11 terrorist attacks, all the international aid workers left, which leaves only a few local UN workers to help.
Afghans have been fleeing from their country for years. At the end of last year, 3.6 million Afghans were living as refugees in other countries. Most were in Pakistan and Iran. Pakistan held 2 million
while Iran held 1.48 million. There were also 38,000 living in other countries in the region. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 172,000 Afghans fled to Pakistan during the year, and 28,790 sought asylum in Europe. It’s very hard to give an accurate amount of Afghans internally displaced because of conflict, but the U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR) believed the
figure to be 375,000